


Siberia

by _Lightning_ (Lightning070)



Series: Cause and Aftermath [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Tony Stark, Bickering, Civil War Fix-It, Coping, Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt Tony Stark, Introspection, Missing Moments, Mission report December 1991, Pepper Potts Is a Good Bro, Pepperony - Freeform, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Precious Peter Parker, Recovery, References to Depression, Siberia, Tony Feels, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Has Trust Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony-centric
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-07-04 14:49:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15843525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightning070/pseuds/_Lightning_
Summary: From Chapter 9:«Mr. Stark, Sir!» a shrill voice made him wince, pulling him from his thoughts just in time before they took a turn for the worst.A red-blue silhouette swiftly popped out from behind the building's railing. He cheerfully vaulted down with a flip and pulled up his mask, revealing a dazzling smile and his ever-messy locks of hair.«Parker, try not to become my newest, most likely cause for a heart attack, will ya?»A multi-chapter story focusing on Tony's emotional and psychological recovery after the fight in Siberia – with some help from his better half and his newly acquired pupil.





	1. Zero Hour

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Siberia](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/412218) by _Lightning_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All rights for the song "Organs" belong to Of Monsters And Men

_"My blood runs red but my body feels so cold_   
_I guess I could swim for days in the salty sea_   
_But in the end the waves will discolour me"_

[Organs – Of Monsters And Men]

 

 

**Now, Siberia**

The fluttering snowflakes fall in front of him, white against red.  
His labored breath turns into erratic puffs of steam. Every gasp of freezing air is a sting in his lungs, ever more chilled from the inside. Even his thoughts seem to sharpen like pointy ice shards, sinking in his head as they tear and rip his confidence apart. Figures, words, blows fading into grey, nearing, leaving, ever more painful. He coils on the concrete, shivering in the snow with his chest split in half as it burns, unable to warm him.

It's cold, in that broken armor, but the real cold settles inside him.

 

[105 words]

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I translated this story myself and English isn't my first language, so if you notice any mistake just let me know and I'll be sure to fix it!
> 
> This first chapter is a sort of introduction to the whole story. What awaits you will probably be even more angsty and challenging for Tony, but I swear it gets better :)
> 
> Coming soon: Peter, a deflecting Tony and some post-Civil War food for thought!
> 
> Thanks to anyone who will read, comment or give kudos to this story :)
> 
> -Light-


	2. 12 hours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All rights for the song "Dream On" belong to Aerosmith

_"The past is gone_  
_It went by like dusk to dawn_  
_Isn't that the way?_  
_Everybody's got their dues in life to pay"_

[Dream On - Aerosmith]

 

**12 hours later, NY, Queens**

"It wasn't worth it."

The thought firmly took shape in his mind, even though he'd spent the last twenty minutes convincing himself of the exact opposite. He was probably bound to change his mind before he could even realize it.

He sighed quietly, and turned his gaze to the streetlamps sweeping outside the car window in a wall of flickering light. He glimpsed the Unisphere cropping up beyond Queens Boulevard and his face hardened. He fixed the blue lenses on his nose, even though it was night – which wasn't really that odd, but in that particular case they also helped hiding the deep shadows under his reddened eyes and the bruise on his cheekbone from the world and the boisterous kid sitting beside him.

Happy's driving was more nervous than usual and he caught the worried looks he kept darting at him through the rear-view mirror.

Peter was unusually quiet as he tinkered with his phone, after an elated twenty-minute recap of what happened in Leipzig, which he'd brimmed with heartfelt thanks for his new costume as well as with questions about the other Avengers. Tony's answers had been unruffled, even the ones regarding Barnes – however vague. But when he'd asked about Rogers, he just dismissed the topic, saying that he could just take a look on Wikipedia or in some website for wistful Vets.

Something about the way he'd said it must have given away more than he'd intended to, since Peter just fell silent. He was thankful for the sunglasses shielding his eyes: he was certain that, had Peter been able to see them, he would've been scared by the sheer anger they'd given off in that instant.

Just then, Peter raised his gaze at him, with a guilty expression he hardly tried to dissimulate. Tony curiously glanced at him, trying to keep the dark thoughts at bay, as they assailed him with every labored breath he took, each one stabbing pain through his sternum and ribs.

He then saw that he kid had been filming with his phone. He seized that opportunity to push all of them worries aside and came back to his flippant, tongue-in-cheek spirit. A sudden, light-hearted chuckle ended up shaking his aching chest.

As he rambled on, he studied that kid who constantly beamed and looked at the world with eyes filled with wonder, and he felt a hint of remorse pinching his guts. From Peter's point of view, that had been just a dangerous, exhilarating adventure, a vivid teenage dream come true. Wearing that costume still hadn't become as heavy as wearing his armor. The bruises he'd gotten during the fight would fade away in no time, while the scars marking his own body and mind wouldn't. There would be no ghosts awaiting him that night, only peaceful dreams recalling what he'd just experienced, eager to experience it again.

There was no Siberia for him yet.

And, between quips and an incomplete hug, he swore to himself there would never be one.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I translated this story myself and English isn't my first language, so if you notice any mistake just let me know and I'll be sure to fix it!
> 
> As promised, here is Peter in all his blissed ignorance about the events of Civil War. This takes place during the first scene in Homecoming, when Tony and Happy are driving Peter home from Germany (supposedly, Tony got in New York first by suit and went to pick them up at the airport).
> 
> On a side note: I have a general tendency to scatter quotes and references to Marvel movies, comics and series here and there. Some are fairly relevant, others are there just for realism, world-immersion and 'cause I'm a nit-picker. This chapter's easter egg: Tony's first thought is a quote from the comic "The Death of Captain America" -> https://static.tumblr.com/k6vb0rs/2WEnlkof3/hxrxu.jpg
> 
> Coming soon: the suit (or what remains of it), anger management issues and good intentions laid to waste...
> 
> Thanks to anyone who will read, comment or give kudos to this story :)
> 
> -Light-


	3. 1 day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so happy for the amount of kudos and bookmarks this story received; being one of the first I publish, it really feels like a big achievement to me, especially since I'm not a native speaker :)  
> It would be so great to hear from who's reading the story, criticism included, so don't be shy! I love feedback and it really keeps me going :D
> 
>  
> 
> All rights for the song "Micro Cuts" belong to Muse.

 

 

_"Hands are red with your blame_  
_Megaphone screaming my name_  
_Whimpers someone I should've loved_  
_Souls weeping above"_

[Micro Cuts - Muse]

 

**One day later, NY, Avengers Tower**

 

He couldn't tell how long he'd been staring at his armor.

More than half an hour, less than one hour, he finally reckoned, shifting on his chair without standing up. He'd lost count of how many times he'd tried to approach it, just to stop dead in his tracks. In the meantime, he'd managed to take note of every single scratch, dent and bump marking the golden-red chrome and showing the raw metal underneath.

The Mark 46 hung from its bracing like a skinned animal, disjointed and lifeless, its defaced helmet dangling on its chest like bowing down in quiet defeat. He gingerly touched his bruised cheekbone, spotting on the metal the blow that had crushed it. Right in the middle of the front plate, across the reactor, stood out the clear, jagged fracture he couldn't bring himself to look at without the pain in his chest suddenly intensifying.

He stood tentatively on his feet, feeling his body aching in protest with every single contusion, fracture and cut. He ignored them, just as he'd ignored his sprained arm when he took off for Siberia and just as he kept ignoring it now. He neared the armor until he was right in front of it, his gaze aligned with the shattered reactor. He forced himself to stare at that wound on his second iron body. In a daze, he took in once more just how _deep_ the wound was.

Rogers had aimed for his head. He did, if for a split second.

That realization swept him off his feet again, like he'd suddenly stumbled on his own certainties. Just one foot above that. That's all it'd have taken to kill him. He wouldn't even have needed all that brute strength to shatter his skull: he wasn't _really_ made of iron.

He's just a mechanic who ought to get his work done, before being crashed by his own thoughts. He rolled up his hoodie's sleeves, finally daring to touch the armor and start fixing it. Coming in contact with the metal hurt way less than he'd thought, even though it felt unnaturally cold.

But _that_ he could stand, better than all the rest.

His gaze found the shield laying on the workbench and he felt a stab in his lungs. Just as that very shield collapsed in his chest the day before. He promptly turned his head to the armor.

All the rest could wait.

He locked his eyes with the helmet's dead eye-slits, looking at his broken mask. It seemed to be staring at him in silent reproach, reminding him it was thanks to it that he became made of iron – somewhere, sometime, in a far-away cave. He'd realized just too late he didn't really need that, to be so. Stark men had always been made of iron.

He brushed against the gash running from the eye socket to the jaw across the bent metal, feeling its sharp edges under his fingertips.

Iron breaks. But he'd never thought _he_ could break.

He cupped the mask with his hands and removed it from its support in an overly tender gesture. He lay it beside the shield, also marred by three parallel scratches. He followed them with his fingertips, absent-minded, then started lightly brushing the shimmering and polished vibranium.

He realized just then that "all the rest" couldn't wait and never could.

He grasped the shield's borders with both hands until it hurt, trying to fend off the abrupt stream of emotions erupting inside him.

Rogers' shield. His father's shield.

That object's twofold nature threatened to split his heart in half, like it was embedded in his chest-plate again. Hatred and regret clashed inside him, clouding his eyesight and making him wish he could just _stop_ feeling anything at all. Was that his friend's weapon, his enemy's or both of them? It belonged to someone he'd trusted blindly... right, he was just _so_ good at trusting people who would betray him. His thoughts started throbbing in his head so fiercely that they almost blinded him.

He tightened his grip on the metal.

The only solace that put his despair to rest was the shield being there, in his hands, instead of pinned to Rogers' straightened and vainly proud shoulders. It didn't belong there: it was still one of his father's greatest creations. A father who most probably thought higher of the man who had wielded that shield than of his own son.

_"My greatest creation is you."_

The shield was knocked to the ground and dragged the wrecked helmet with it, in a deafening clatter that covered his scream.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have noticed, the chapters will become longer and longer as the story moves forward. They'll then become shorter again towards the end.
> 
> Coming soon: sleepless nights, a definitely not-nostalgic Tony and blatant misuse of high-tech devices...
> 
> Thanks to everyone for reading, commenting and/or giving kudos to this story :)
> 
> -Light-


	4. One week

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the super delay, but I got caught up in various other writing projects&stuff, as well as exams. I hope to be more constant with my updates in the future :)
> 
>  
> 
> All rights for the song "My December" belong to Linkin Park.

_"This is me pretending_  
_This is all I need_  
_And I just wish that I didn't feel_

_Like there was something I missed"_

  
[My December – Linkin Park]

  


**One week later, Upstate New York, Avengers Compound**

He wanted to go back to Malibu.

The mansion was just as empty as his penthouse in New York had been, but it was not as quiet. The undertow's constant murmuring was louder than the traffic's subtle vibrations on Park Avenue and it had always helped him not to remain alone with his own thoughts. And yet, even at the Tower, he'd been able to snatch some sleep from insomnia, lulled by the glimmering skyline and the luminous car trails in New York's streets, as he sat down before the glass wall waiting for his eyelids to fall shut.

Here, in his room at the Compound, Silence was an invasive and unpleasant guest, which left him to toss and turn in his useless, empty king-size bed.

He would've loved to go back to Malibu, but he knew there was no one waiting for him. Then he'd be really rattling around an empty mansion as Rogers had feared. That hypocrite.

He kicked the blankets away and got up, opting out of sleep for that night too. Perhaps some fresh air would clear his head, he decided. He grabbed his robe and wobbled out in the hallway and then towards the common room, followed by the swish of silk and bare feet on the floor.

The common room was foreseeably empty.

Vision's chessboard lay on the coffee table, all pieces still lined up in one of his one-man games. Rhodey's physio book hung face-down on the couch's backrest. Someone had left the muted TV on. They were broadcasting the umpteenth report about the Raft break out. He felt a sense of jeering satisfaction when Secretary Ross' flushed and furious face appeared on the screen. The one cynical part of himself wished him that the heart attack he'd survived several years before would come around again to finish its job. 

He turned the TV off with a tired move before they could begin to show the fugitives' photos. They wouldn't surely send him to sleep.

He exited through the balcony door and an unpleasant shiver shook his body as he met the chilly night air. He halted on the threshold, huddling up in his damask robe and forcing himself not to go back inside. It was just a bit of cold, he reminded himself, as his chest started to ache. Just a bit of cold, he repeated once again, but he found himself squinting his blurry eyes and gripping his fingers on that damn silken robe, wondering why he'd been so weak to wear it. He stood there as he grew numb, his head bowed.

When dawn's faint greyness tinted the sky, he was already flying to New York.

 

*

 

He'd always liked to wallow in the illusion he wasn't nostalgic, but he had to surrender to his own hypocrisy when he found himself perched on the Tower's top as he admired the rising sun over the Big Apple, the city that had seen him grow up. He fixed his gaze on the Hudson, following its tranquil waves lit by the rising sun, seeking for a calm he couldn't seem to find. He then stared back to the skyscraper-indented horizon, shrouded in a thin early mist.

Maybe later he would flit about in supersonic just a little longer. He really needed an adrenaline rush to scatter that cloak of icy and pressing thought that kept prodding at him the moment he let his guard down. He felt trapped in this limbo between past and present as its border began to flake apart ever more. He wasn't strong enough to ignore those calls, even with his suit on. And right then, the call came from Long Island, whose shape loomed over his shoulders, opposite to Manhattan. He didn't turn around and stubbornly kept his eyes on the Hudson, pretending the river itself held no emotional charge whatsoever.

As expected, more images muscled in into his head, tenaciously persistent, and he wasn't able to hold them back like he regularly did in the days before. That border was beginning to wear thin, no matter how hard he tried to keep guard on it: something always succeeded in eluding his watch and seeped into reality.

He huddled with his knees to his chest with a faint hissing from his mechanical joints; he finally unclosed his helmet and let the morning fresh and clean air caress his face. It felt unpleasantly icy on his skin, but he suppressed the urge to take cover behind his mask, choosing the ephemeral and deceiving protection of his memories.

He'd spent most of his childhood and teen years in New York, mostly in boarding schools, but the city housed very few moments worth of notice. Those were mostly kept in Malibu, in the mansion where he'd spent the summer months since he could remember. He'd rejoiced when his parents had finally decided to move permanently on the West Coast, back when he'd just turned seventeen and was fresh out of MIT. The manor in Long Island, where he'd spent the rest of his vacations, had never fitted him.

His eyes ran right there, to the approximate point where his old house had been. He could've lowered his mask and zoom that zone in to make sure it still stood, but he didn't, as a cold hand held him back.

He only had gloomy memories about that place: dim hallways, windows gaping on an ever-deserted garden and locked doors he had no permission to open. And silence. He couldn't suffer the silence even as a kid. He'd always been secretly happy when his mother decided to break it with the piano, nowhere near his father, of course.

He breathed in deeper, fending off the notes of a far-away song, his glassy eyes fixed on Long Island's lean profile and lost among lush gardens and shimmering pools.

He'd spent many a day of his childhood dawdling around that uselessly enormous house, bored out of his mind and with the only distraction of his inventions or some prank at his father's expense, always too busy locking himself up in the lab to really care about him. Too busy searching for planes crashed in the ice, negotiating with Wakanda to obtain more vibranium, discussing with SSR or SHIELD, empowering Stane with an ever-growing share at Stark Industries, spending his Christmas holidays at the Pentagon and carrying around some supersoldier-serum batch in his car's trunk.

He clenched his jaw until it hurt, stirring the bruise on his cheekbone and the sharp pang in his chest, relentless as it had been years before when a crude magnet pierced right through it. It wasn't half as bearable. He covered his face with an ironclad hand; it felt frozen against his flushed skin.

He didn't want those memories. He wished he had other, more peaceful ones, which would not abruptly stop with a sedan wrapped around a tree, which would not always cause that bitter aftertaste in his mouth; that dormant mixture of anger and disappointment that gnawed at his heart and that he'd been directing for years at the wrong people.

Not his father, inattentive, detached, focused on the past and the future but deaf to the present. Not his mother, too meek to stand out, too pliant to really do more than what she'd already done. And even if the Winter Soldier's cold, alienated stare often recurred in his nightmares, it wasn't him who'd diverted his parents' love for twenty years. He just made so to preclude it from him for good, but they'd been ripped away from him long before they were killed.

Rogers could've at least finished the job and smash his head with that damn shield, instead of landing it on his stupid reactor that didn't even keep him alive anymore.

Again, a bitter taste invaded his mouth, the one he'd learned to associate with being powerless. Because, after all, Rogers was right, and he hated him for that too. But nothing he did could ever change the facts. Those broken memories would've stayed, along with the knowledge that he'd lived them only halfway, while the other part had been stolen away before he'd even come into this world. All because of a crashed plane and a missing supersoldier.

He swallowed hard, fighting back those useless tears and the lump that had clogged up his throat, but incapable of pulling back from what kept emerging before his eyes.

 

For a moment, he thought he saw his father, sitting at his workbench with his back to the door as he bent over his projects, deaf and blind to the rest of the world. He clung onto that faraway image and tiptoed into the memory, wiping out the blurred shape of that same man as he lay in the dust of a lonely street, helpless against the blows which kept pouring down on him.

He pushed his way in that bubble of painful indifference, still so much sweeter as opposed to the cruel black and white threatening to smother it. He crossed the lab's doorstep as he'd done so many times before during his life, with that same mixture of awe and expectation. Only, it wasn't his young self to enter the room.

He found himself looking at those shoulders with his tired and adult eyes, in his body now stronger and taller than his father's; and it was his callused and scar-ridden hand to reach for the man's shoulder. A gesture he never had the courage nor the will to make, but that he now yearned for. His father raised his gaze, pointing at him his dark, expressive eyes so similar to his own, letting the hint of a rare smile appear under his white mustache.

As he clumsily squeezed his shoulder, an embrace enclosed him from behind like a caress. He put his free hand on his mother's interlaced ones, right in the point where his reactor had been. He sought refuge in those warm arms and felt her head leaning on his shoulder, like so many other times when he was a kid.

 

Tony slowly opened his eyes and pried his conscience from that false, artificial memory.

He wasn't regretting having thrown his 611 million dollars of scientific progress off the cliff at Malibu, from the same spot he'd thrown his reactor years before. He'd still had the opportunity and weakness to wear those glasses one last time after his return from Siberia. He'd allowed himself to shape that sole, fake image through which he still sloppily tried to mend his wounds, only managing to stitch them up and have them pull open at the slightest movement.

He blinked several times and blurred the remaining shapes and colors still ingrained in his retinas, dispersing the thin, liquid veil that had clouded his eyes once again. He turned again towards Long Island, now kissed by the first morning light and, again, he wondered if his old house still stood.

He didn't look for an answer and when he took off he veered south, to Malibu, back home.

 


End file.
